


How We Fell

by Loch



Series: Save Your Eulogies [1]
Category: In the Flesh (TV), Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Not Beta Read, Protests, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-22
Updated: 2014-09-22
Packaged: 2018-02-18 10:42:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2345486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Loch/pseuds/Loch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How, exactly, did the Les Amis become PDS sufferers? </p><p>It all went so wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How We Fell

It had all gone so wrong, but there was very little surprise in that.

 

 

\---

 

The Les Amis de L'ABC had held their biggest demonstration yet. The crowd was so much larger than any they'd had before, and it might have been that that sparked off the violence.

It had started as it always did, with shoves and shouts, and then there's an eruption and people are screaming and running and-

Well, usually it stopped there. People were taken away, or did their best to sneak away. 

This time, it did not.

The sickening sound of gunfire had lit the air. Silence had fallen, before a scream had torn free of one, then many, throats. Their names, the names of the people whose bodies hitting the ground had been so quiet in comparison to their voices, to the shots. Shouts of " _Murderer!"_ and outrage filled the air, and more shots joined them, but the police were backing away, realising what they had done.

 

\---

 

Joly had been that first voice to scream. He'd been kept at the back, to tend to anyone that needed it, to help calm people who couldn't handle the crowd. When the guns had gone off, the protesters had hit the floor. He hadn't, helping someone who couldn't be jolted like that.

It had given him the perfect view of the few staggering steps, the knees striking pavement. He could see the horrible shock he was feeling in his friend's shoulders as they realised that they wouldn't be getting back up.

He'd screamed as the first had slumped to the cobblestones. 

 

\---

 

The screams had woken Grantaire.

He'd been camped out in the near-forgotten upper story of a cafe overlooking the street they were protesting on. They'd started off here before going out to being, and he'd just not moved. He had no speech to give, after all.

He'd managed to sleep through the passionate addresses, the roar of the crowd, but there was something in the screams that had his instincts on high alert.

The window was darkened for their late night meetings, so he took the stairs as fast as he could- but he couldn't see over the fists and the signs in the air, ran to the medic station. Maybe he could stand on their table- and there, he could see.

He could see the cobbled square at one end with their medical table at the other. He noticed Joly first, the crowd parting around him like something out of myth, even as they worked themselves into a higher form of frenzy.

He noticed how Joly's skin had drained of colour, how his fists were clenched. How he didn't seem to notice the people around him, just moved inexorably on.

Then he looked at the square.

There was movement there, and for a horrible moment all he could see was blood.

The source was hidden by the black uniforms of the police, but that didn't mean that he couldn't see it collecting and running on the uneven street.

And then the beetle-black-backs paused, and he saw the body bags, saw faces held dear with eyes closed and blood matted in hair and splattered over clothes, before the zips were rushed closed and they were taken with Joly still in the crowd.


End file.
